Chapter 652: The Spoked Offensive

The Sharkanan people were mammals, with a heavy bone structure, thick muscle, a layer of kinetic absorbing fat, and excellent mental acuity. They approached science like all other things, once they tamed their planet. By putting their species resources toward whatever was necessary. The discovered the Lanaktallan from radio signals and correctly deduced that the Lanaktallan and the Unified Civilized Council put those signals out as a trap.

They spread out quietly, slowly, to avoid the notice of the Lanaktallan. First in long sleep ships, using technology to increase and adapt their natural hibernation into something that could last for decades. That allowed them to settle their first few planets. Then they began expanding by establishing more colonies.

The Sharkanan were a careful, patient people.

Still, they were conquerors at heart and they intended on conquering the Lanaktallan Unified Civilized Council territory.

They built their fleet. Tens of thousands of warships, with hundreds of thousands of support ships. Power armor and robot combat armor was created and manufactured.

The fleet trained for nearly five years. At the peak of their performance, well, slightly on the downward trend, the crews all went into hypersleep and the fleet made for 'enemy' space. They had devised stealth systems that could operate in jumpspace and conceal both entry and exit as well as continue to keep the ships in stealth in realspace.

That was where they had exited jumpspace and into the Oort Cloud of the target system.

It was there they had witnessed complete insanity.

A Terran task force had come to the assistance of a Great Herd naval fleet that had been fighting dozens of Harvester class PAWM ships.

Lord Commander Grawnka, the Sharkanan fleet commander, had only watched it for an hour before ordering his ships to slip back into jumpspace and run for home. He was convinced that nobody had seen him, convinced of his own technological superiority.

He had been wrong.

However, when the Precursor Autonomous War Machines had come screaming out of Hellspace with YOU BELONG ME! they did not find a terrified system hiding behind a threadbare fleet.

The Sharkanan still had their fleet. Indeed, in the bare year they had almost doubled it.

They had seen what threats were in the universe and were determined to be those who ate not those who were eaten.

Their colonies were defended, their core systems were defended.

Twenty-two interlocked systems, all ready to come to one another's defenses.

Still, despite the initial confidence of the Sharkanan commanders, they had never faced PAWM's, much less Goliaths and Juggernauts and Devastators. Massive, subcontinent sides ships that could produce more of their kind.

The Sharkanan lost control of the large gas giants on the outer edges of the three systems attacked after the first. The massive Goliaths sinking into the gas giants. Some Sharkanan thought that the massive ships had been disabled by the Sharkanan fleet.

Lord Commander Grawnka knew better. Something about it made his claws itch.

Soon more systems were attacked, in spokes from the initial system.

It was five months into the fight when he finally managed to convince the politicians and the other commanders what was happening.

The Goliaths were following ships to the other colonies and core worlds.

Nine more systems were under attack, which, including the first three and the initial system, meant that thirteen systems were under heavy assault.

In each one, three Harvester Class ships would show up and fight to isolate the furthest out gas giant and keep the defenders away from it. They would then sink into the gas giant and only defend the gas giant.

Some idiotic politicians suggested the the "Great Ships" only wanted the gas giants.

Lord Commander Grawnka remembered the initial battlecry: YOU BELONG TO ME!

He also remembered what he had seen on the scanners. Those weapons that rippled space itself, the massive amount of firepower put out by the fleets he had seen.

He knew that weapons that fired faster than light could be created, he had seen the evidence on the scanners, and he had ordered, as soon as they got back, crash programs to figure out how.

It was in the second year of fighting that one crash program had results.

It utilized a jumpspace drive. It was well known that any ship coming out of jumpspace within the resonance zone would be destroyed, and the crash program had examined what exactly happened. They determined that the heavy gravity well was what caused it. They worked with that until they were able to do short-skip navigation with pinpoint accuracy, at least within a single solar unit.

The second breakthrough they had was the creation of a small magnetic/gravitational vortex within jumpspace to realspace. Only fifty meters wide into realspace, and nearly two hundred meters wide within jumpspace, but a cone all the same.

This allowed them to 'aim' the resulting explosion that occurred with a large object moving from jumpspace to realspace with at least basic accuracy.

They packed it all into a thirty meter wide and ninety meter long 'missile' slash 'cannon round' and tested it.

It worked. It wasn't amazingly accurate, but Lord Commander Grawnka reminded the researchers that what they were fighting had hulls measured in tens of kilometers.

Lord Commander Grawnka ordered two ships wrapped around those guns and the munitions for them manufactured.

It took a year and a half.

He then ordered those ships to join his battered and constantly reinforced fleet and they made for the latest system of the thirteen under attack.

The battle was fierce, and while Lord Commander Grawnka wasn't victorious, he was able to demolish nearly half of the robotic spaceships before his ships ran out of ammunition.

What he didn't know is that each detonation of his guns sent light ripples through jumpspace.

Ripples that were detectable for hundreds of light years within a few weeks, if one had sensitive enough systems to pick up the ripple that wouldn't even brush a jumpspace traveling ship with a harmonic.

He also didn't know that there was a fleet out there that could detect such minuscule ripples.

A very very mean fleet.

Ignorant of this small fact about the greater galactic arm spur, he ordered his ships reloaded, ordered ten ammo tenders loaded, the third and fourth completed ships into his fleet, and sallied out again against the unfeeling machines that still had not managed to do much more than take the gas giants.

The Sharkanan were the dominant life form of that section of the galactic arm spur. Lord Commander Grawnka knew this as deeply as he knew his name. It was up to him, and him alone, with the backing of his industrious and hard working people, to lead the fleet made up of the finest Sharkanan who ever drew breath, against the fleet of unfeeling cold metal robotic spaceships.

He dropped out of jumpspace on the near side of the system from his target. Due to stellar geography, the seventh planet was virtually isolated from the other three gas giants.

As he approached the seventh planet from the stellar mass he saw the hordes of defenders rise up from the depths in as thick of a mass as they had been six months prior in the system he had first tested the Drop Punch system.

For four years his people had fought and fought hard. He intended on liberating this system, the first one that had been taken, as a symbolic gesture that the Sharkanan people would not give up.

YOU BELONG TO US! reverberated through the thick skull of every Sharkanan as the robotic warships lit their primary drives and moved as a coherent whole toward the Sharkanan fleet.

Lord Commander Grawnka stood on the bridge, staring at the icons in the holotank. The enemy burned with a cold amber light, his own forces were a comforting crimson.

"Drop Punch Battleships firing," he heard.

Grawnka just nodded, reaching up with one claw and pushing his helmet's faceshield back into the retractive housing slightly. It didn't do anything, but it made him feel better. If anything happened automatic systems would close his faceplate if he was too slow to react.

But it had become a habit decades ago to push at the lip of the retracted face shield.

His ships were five light minutes from the robotic warships.

"Detecting jumpspace flares," the gunnery officer said. "Waiting for confirmation."

Lord Commander Grawnka nodded.

The battle continued, the unliving warships driving hard for Lord Commander Grawnka's fleet, the Drop Punch ships firing. He had four now but only two were firing. At the third hour he ordered those two ships to fall back and reload from the tenders and ordered the other two to take their positions and take up the firing plan.

The machine fleet was only an hour from Lord Commander Grawnka's fleet when it happened.

"CONTACTS! MANY MANY CONTACTS!" his scan officer called out.

Lord Commander Grawnka saw three more holotanks come to life. The system had four gas giants total.

The other three had thousands, tens of thousands of contacts rising up out of their depths and begin to group together. Tens of thousands of gravitic drives were clustering together.

"New contacts courses determined," his scan officer said. He gave a choking sound. "Course appears to be a intercept course on New Grewmer. Time: Sixteen hours."

There was a moment of stunned hesitation as Lord Commander Grawnka absorbed the information.

He was wildly out of place. It would take nearly nineteen hours for him to intercept and that was if he had his fleet go to jumpspace and exit outside the resonance zone then drive into the system to intercept.

"Scans coming in," the officer said. "The ships are... different."

"Define: different," Lord Commander Grawnka ordered.

Scans of the new ships popped up in the holotanks and Lord Commander Grawnka saw it at the same time as the scanning officer voiced it.

"They're... grown. Like they're alive."

Lord Commander Grawnka again tasted bitter ash on his tongue.

"We'll have to hope the system defense forces can hold them off," he said.

He knew that there was no chance.

He turned back to the battle at hand, keeping one eye on the holotanks.

His battle was going well. The enemy ships were still two and a half a light hours out and over two thirds of them were already gone. There was no sign of the bigger one, the one the size of a continent, that had sank into the gas giant four years prior, but he was ready for it to appear.

The system defense ships facing against the other three fleets was faring a lot worse.

For the most part the three new fleets just went straight by the defense fleets. They drove past, going hard for the planet, ignoring casualties. Defense ships that got too close were hit by ramming attacks. Those who were hit reported being boarded.

Then nothing at all.

Lord Commander Grawnka felt the gnawing feeling of defeat in his guts as the three enemy fleets moved closer and closer to the planet. The planet's defensive systems were hard at work, firing whole shoals of missiles at the oncoming enemy.

Grawnka knew that it would matter.

They wanted the planet and they brought enough to at least put up a good fight for it.

Lord Commander Grawnka's fleet made turnover, accelerating toward the sole inhabited planet, even as it kept firing at the scraps of enemy fleet, holding the distance open at a light hour, still rotating out the ships.

"Have Drop Punch Battleships fire on the new fleets," he ordered. "One ship on the robotic enemy, one ship on the newcomers."

"Aye, sir," the tactical officer said.

Grawnka knew that it was hopeless. He didn't have enough ammunition for the Drop Punch system to effect those massive clouds of biological warships, not in any meaningful way.

The hours crawled by, his ships gaining speed back the way they came, a thirty light hour angle, while the three fleets made for the inhabited planet, their speeds differed in such a way that they'd reach the planet at roughly the same time.

At the six hour mark before they'd reach the planet Lord Commander Grawnka felt the burning shame of defeat.

His ships were still twenty hours out.

The System Defense ships were gone.

The planetary defense missile batteries had run dry.

And still the clouds of biological ships swept toward the planet.

He knew he was going to have to watch the world die. He would be too late to save it.

That four years of fighting had just resulted in absolutely nothing.

He heard them gloat. Not a mechanical, computerized, or robotic voice this time.

It was cold and inhuman, almost covered in slime.

you belong to us

He opened his mouth to ask for any suggestions, anything, when he, like everyone else in the system heard it. The words were a roar, understandable despite a language barrier. It was a roar of rage, of wrath, and a promise of destruction.

It echoed from every flat piece of metal or microplas.

It echoed through space.

HEAVY METAL INCOMING!

HOLD THE LINE!

"Sir, massive datadump in that," his communications officer snapped. "Jump exit coordinates, it looks like they're going to be jumping into the resonance zone with nearly three hundred ships!" The holotank burned in a stripe between the three fleets and the planet.

Before Lord Commander Grawnka could say anything his scanners picked up dozens, scores of ships flashing into existence between the oncoming biological fleets and the planet.

HEAVY METAL IS HERE! the roar almost drove Grawnka to his knees.

They all dropped within the arc on his holotank.

The new fleet opened fire. His instruments and shipboard scanners could pick up the ripples in the fabric of space even at nearly twenty light hours as if it was only a few kilometers away.

Opened fire on the biological fleet.

HEAVY MET AL INCOMING! rang out.

"Sir, they're coming in behind us, with acceleration warnings that they'll be passing us to directly engage the enemy!" his communications officer called out.

HEAVY METAL IS HERE!

Another fleet dropped in behind Lord Commander Grawnka, heading toward the robotic fleet, their guns already firing on the robotic spaceships before Grawnka go back scanner results.

you belong to us!

COME GET SOME!